The Goggle Bob Blog

Tag Archives: chaos

So, chess, right? You know how to play chess? Let’s say you do. Do you remember when you learned how to play chess? Were you taught by a family member? A teacher? Some other kid? Some other adult? But here’s the thing: it is very unlikely you learned chess from a rulebook. Yes, you may have later read a great strategy guide to finally beat your grandpa at the game of kings (who don’t feel like standing up), but it’s downright unnatural to learn the rules of the game from a book or manual. And there’s a reason for that! Chess is a two player game, so it’s rather inevitable that player one is going to lecture player two. This is how games are learned! This is how games are passed from generation to generation. And, ultimately, this is what makes a game eternal: the drive for one generation to teach another. Because, after all, if you can’t find somebody to play with, what’s the point of playing a game at all?

Now, humble reader, I am well aware this is a videogame blog. I am blitheringly aware that “there must be a second player” is a stupid position for malcontents that haven’t picked up a controller in the last thirty years. This very blog will attest to the fact that my favorite games are predominantly single player. And, sad but true fact, I would estimate that a mere 10% of my gaming time is anything that could truly be considered “multiplayer”. But, gentle reader, you misunderstand my intentions. I’m not saying a game must include a two player option, I’m saying that videogames are your second player.

My father taught me how to play checkers. My mother taught me how to play Clue. My grandfather taught me how to play Chess. And Shigeru Miyamoto taught me how to play Super Mario Bros. Or did SMB itself teach me? The line is a little blurred there, but, if we consider videogames to be “thinking” objects (which we obviously do, because why else would we swear at them so regularly when they kill our dudes?), then a videogame’s own… videogameness is your eternal second player and teacher. After all, what fun is a game if you don’t understand the rules?

And, while we’re asking that rhetorical question: are bad games just games where “the game” misrepresents or otherwise sullies “the rules”? What is bad hit detection but a misperception of the boundaries of certain malicious pixels? When a JRPG requires excessive grinding, is it a feature, or a misunderstanding of what the player has to do between two objectives? And who likes it when the rules change right at the final moments? You’ve been playing an awesome action game, and then it turns into a shoot ‘em up? That’s a clear betrayal of the rules that Friend Videogame laid down from the start! That would be like requiring every game of Hungry Hungry Hippos to end with a test of strength! And that’s terrible! There’s no way I could overpower a kindergartener!

And then there are the games that don’t even bother with explaining the rules. They’re the worst of all.

Final Fantasy Dissidia NT is the long awaited sequel to Final Fantasy Dissidia Duodecim, a game that was released a whopping seven years ago. In videogame years, that is a period equal to approximately eighteen Assassin’s Creeds, or at least sixty Maddens. That is a lot of time for technology to improve, and, what’s more, the old Dissidia was a title for the PSP. Remember the PSP? Sony’s attempt to out-portable Nintendo right when mobile gaming was first making the scene? Yeah, it was an abject failure, but Square-Enix managed to release at least one good PSP game a year, so it wasn’t a total loss. And one of those excellent SE games was Dissidia, an unusual fighting game featuring the heroes and villains of the Final Fantasy franchise all duking it out for… I don’t know… I think crystals were involved? It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it was fun, and it was one of the rare fighting games that was actually built for a portable system. Dissidia was part Street Fighter, but also part Pokémon, as you had to “train” your Tidus, and make sure the little dork always had the best equipment. Excuse me, it wasn’t about having the best equipment, it was about equipping the items that would fit your playstyle, so you might wind up with a different load out if you preferred to chase EX charges, or liked to just pummel your opponent into submission. You’ve got options!

But this is not to say Dissidia was a straightforward fighting game that just happened to have a little extra backend. Dissidia introduced the “Bravery System”, which, in short, means you’re supposed to hit your opponent until you have accrued enough hits to really hit your opponent. On one hand, it’s an overly complicated way to get to the “deplete HP” step that is essential to every fighting game ever, but, on the other hand, it does create a lot more drama, and a real see-saw mechanic that other fighting games have attempted to achieve for years. But, love it or hate it, you had to learn it before you could use it, so Dissidia certainly had a barrier of entry. But at least there was a tutorial right from the boot up of Dissidia, and, acknowledging that people might need such a thing, there were intensive lessons available through the game. And, what’s more, those lectures were written “by” Final Fantasy heroes from throughout the series, so if you ever thought Rydia would be an excellent summons teacher, congratulations, you’re right! Hey, if a game knows you’re going to need extra instructions, at least make those instructions interesting.

Final Fantasy Dissidia NT, unfortunately, did not learn this lesson.

FFDNT started as an arcade game. And that’s great! So did Street Fighter 2! And we all learned how to play that game just fine. Except… assuming you were playing a proper SF2 cabinet, all the fireball motions you could ever need were graphics on the cabinet, so learning the finer points of that experience was, amazingly, still teaching-based. Not so much with FFDNT. It is unlikely I’ll ever see a FFDNT cabinet, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it doesn’t have the gameplay basics written anywhere on there, as it would require a cabinet roughly the size of a convenience store. Want to know how Terra works? That’s in aisle six.

See, the problem with Final Fantasy Dissidia NT is not simply that it fails to convey meaningful lessons to the neophyte player, it’s that there is so much going on, it is impossible to accurately learn anything from the gameplay. There are two teams of three, but you only control one fighter on one team. That’s pretty normal… but what are the win conditions again? It seems like fighters revive pretty quickly after depleting their health… so is it a most kills in a minute kind of thing? No, wait, the match just ended… did someone die? Our team? Theirs? And now there are some rankings… looks like whoever exhausted the most HP gets the trophy… but aren’t there other goals during a match? Why am I supposed to attack the EX Core Crystals again? To summon? But I can summon even if I never bothered. And what does the summon do? Change the background, toss a few lasers around, and… wait, my attack stat goes up? How am I supposed to know that? And I should be using my EX skill more often? How does that become available? It poisons the opponent? But only if I choose that at the start of the match? Holy cow, how are there this many questions revolving around one three minute match!?

And Dissidia NT continues to pose questions when it should be providing answers. Why does story mode distinctly require exiting story mode to make progress? Why does this character completely change her playstyle with a button, while that character just kind of grunts? Why did I just earn a new special move if I can’t even use it? Why is changing equipment only cosmetic, but changing my EX ability dramatically impacts the battle? And, most of all, why are my party members always dying? Am I supposed to be doing something different? Should I be protecting them? Should I be more offensive? If this were a traditional Final Fantasy game (even one of the later, more AI controlled titles like FF15 or FF12), and 66% of my party was dying every other round, I’d be sure I was doing something wrong. Here? Not really. In fact, during boss matches, your allies appear to exist only to be mobile meat dummies, and their greatest contribution is distraction. But it’s not like the game effectively relays this information in any way, and you’re just left listening to Shantotto apologize for her tenth death in a row. I’m sorry, chipmunk girl, I’ll try to be better next time. I think?

And it’s not that Dissidia NT is a bad game, it’s simply that practically the entire thing… ummm… uh… Oh! A metaphor! Good games play with you like a good friend, but bad games are definitely that one smelly kid that told you exactly what you’re going to play now, and you’re going to listen to his rules, and what do you mean you don’t play it like this at your house, we’re playing it my way now, you better learn how that works, or you’re not going to have any fun. No, I’m not going to teach you, nerd, just start playing. No, not like that! Moooooom! Bobby isn’t playing the game right at all!

Okay, maybe Final Fantasy Dissidia NT is bad. Once you understand it, once you read the FAQs and strategy guides and message boards, once you get through all the auxiliary materials, FFDNT is actually pretty fun to play. But before that? Before that, it’s pure, confusing hell, and a hell that makes no effort to impart how you might find your way to its heaven. Final Fantasy Dissidia NT might have a delicious, chewy center, but it’s surrounded by rancid garbage.

And how much garbage are you willing to swallow?

FGC #395 Final Fantasy Dissidia NT

System: Playstation 4 and Arcade. The arcade version came out three years ago? Crazy.

Number of players: Online? Six. Locally? One. There should be a law against that.

Other Illegalities: There are also loot boxes. And “buy a season pass now, we’ll announce the DLC characters later” sales. Dissidia is actively trying to piss me off.

The sequel curse: So this is, ultimately, a mascot fighting game. And you know what a mascot fighting game should never do? Drop characters. I don’t care if you’re Ice Climbers or Gon, when you lose the weirdo auxiliary characters from game to game, you lose my heart. The lack of Gilgamesh, Laguna, Yuna, and Tifa in this title is keenly felt. And if even one of those dorks become extra purchases? I will burn this mother down.

Favorite Character: Bartz is pretty awesome. He was my favorite in OG Dissidia, and he’s completely different now, but he’s still a lot of fun. And fast! And fast is really important when you have to chase some angry tree all over the arena.

Other annoyances: You can’t just restart a battle in a single player match. This is particularly important in the boss battles, as, come on, you can permanently lose those fights in the first thirty seconds, but wait five minutes to actually die. And then you have to wait five minutes for loading screens…

The Final Fantasy: So, considering the sheer lunacy that was the first two Dissidia titles, the story of this one is actually pretty straightforward: there’s a world fueled by battles, everyone battles, everyone realizes there’s no real reason to battle, and then they fake battle until they battle a giant lizard so they can make clones that will fight battles forever. That’s pretty much the plot to Sense and Sensibility.

Say something nice: Terra is supposed to be “post Final Fantasy 6” Terra in this one (or something like that), and she’s actually kind of… good? Previous Dissdias made her a sort of damsel (“Oh, poor me, Kefka is always taking over my brain, what is it to be me?”), but here she’s confident, and winds up being the de facto leader of her little party. Way to get yourself together, Terra!

Did you know? That kid from Final Fantasy Tactics is in this one! No, not Thunder God Cid, the main character. You know! What’s his name? Delita? No, that doesn’t sound right…

Would I play again: Honestly? Probably not. Even if the upcoming DLC is amazing, there are too many good fighting games out there, and Dissidia seems to revel in wasting time. Just give me my instant gratification, Square!

What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Centipede: Infestation for the Nintendo 3DS! Centipedes? In my blog? It’s more common than you think. Please look forward to it!

As with all wizardry, it’s the little things that will give you away. I live in a happy little town, and, like many communities, we have a consistent garbage pickup day. Every Wednesday morning, some men that must have to buy new clothes weekly show up on the back of a large truck, and take all my trash away to parts unknown (I used to know the location of our local dump, but it was converted into an expensive golf course a couple years back…. Seriously). These pickups occur like clockwork, except when there’s a holiday. And it doesn’t even have to be a real holiday! Whether it’s Christmas or National Pug Day, if there’s a holiday at the start of the week, trash pickup is delayed a day. Trash then leaves on Thursday morning, not Wednesday. But what do my neighbors do? They put out their trash for Wednesday, same as ever, and I presume they are confused the entire day by that unusual reeking smell on their sidewalk. Why hast thou trash guy forsaken me!?

But I don’t do that. I never do that. I always know when to put out my trash, absurd holidays or no. I know the secrets of this schedule, even if my neighbors have no idea how what magics I employ to properly track the pickups. But, I am no sorcerer, dear neighbor, I am a mere mortal. How do I always know what to do? Simple, I have a written schedule, printed from the internet, and thus I know, with 100% accuracy, when my trash will be removed. It’s that simple, neighborhood!

But still, it feels good to get the day right. It feels right to gaze upon my downtrodden neighbors, hold my head high, and say, “No, foolish citizen, today is not the day your trash leaves. It is tomorrow, and I know this, for I am one who knows.” It’s a stupid, misplaced kind of pride, because I know that I only “know” because of some random slip of paper I printed out around the new year, but… it still feels good. It feels good to look at this random world, and feel like you know.

And that’s how I play Final Fantasy games. That’s how I’ve always played Final Fantasy games.

I was an easily bored child. I suppose that is to say, I was a child. This Child Goggle Bob had to be entertained at all times, and my parents were fans of edumacasion, so, before I even realized what was happening, I had become a voracious reader. My parents were perfectly willing to purchase reading material or swing by the library often, so I read a lot of children’s fiction, a few graphic novels, Dave Barry, and, of course, any speck of the written word regarding my favorite medium, videogames. By third grade, I had a Nintendo Power subscription that would be renewed through high school, but even before that, I wound up with a number of “random” issues from convenience stores here and there. And one of those random issues happened to be this…

I have no idea where this (and, yes, “this” is this case is that exact Final Fantasy guide you see pictured there) came from. It was before I had a Nintendo Power subscription (let’s see here… the internet tells me this was Volume 17 in 1990, and I didn’t have a subscription until about Volume 24, 1991), and I had no particular love for Final Fantasy before reading the guide… Come to think of it, it’s entirely possible that issue was simply left at my grandparent’s guest house by a careless tourist. But whatever the source, I loved that lil’ strategy guide. I read it, cover to cover, roughly twelve billion times. It was my security blanket. I could immediately recount to any interested adult (none) how Kraken is weak to lightning, Black Belt becomes Master, and Astos is the secret Dark Elf that knows RUB. I knew that the most powerful magic spells were hidden off to the side of the final town, and I cowered in fear at the fact that revisited Lich knew one of those ultra-powerful spells. How could anyone ever defeat such a force?

Oh, which I suppose brings me to the other point of mentioning that beloved strategy guide: I had never played Final Fantasy. I did not own Final Fantasy when I first started reading that vaunted magazine, and, by some cosmic accident, none of the local video rental dens had a copy for renting. With the exception of a few whited-out rooms in the Temple of Fiends, I had memorized the entirety of the game before ever playing it. In fact, without a rental, I’m not certain I had ever even seen the game in motion. Most of my friends were playing Chip ‘n Dale at the time, obviously an “RPG” was off the table. So while I had to sit around and wait for the nearest Christmas, I planned my path of attack, all the while knowing that, when it was time to face Chaos, I would know what to do.

And the joke of it? I didn’t.

I don’t think I really understood Final Fantasy games (and JRPGS in general) until Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. I was apparently a natural speed runner, and anything that made me finish the game faster meant I was playing the game “right”. I ran from a number of monsters. I’m pretty sure I only actually fought two battles in the Marsh Cave. I grinded the (mythical) Hall of Giants when I absolutely needed money for that exit spell. I didn’t notice I was severely underleveled. I didn’t notice that my party was… less than optimized. I just knew that I was getting to that rad airship faster, and then it was off to a class change with Bahamut. I was playing the game completely wrong, but I felt good, I felt right entirely because I read up on exactly what to do in Final Fantasy, and no multi-armed snake lady was gonna scare me!

And… that’s how I like to play Final Fantasy games. Heck, that’s how I like to live my life.

Presumably thanks to our crippling national addiction to social media (what’s next, electing a president based on twitter followers?) we currently live in an environment where spoilers are treated with the same severity as biological weapons. Everyone wants to point to Game of Thrones for making this some kind of national crisis, but going back a scant few years, you can trace that insanity back to Harry Potter, The Sixth Sense, or even any given Hitchcock film. Spoilers are something most people care about to an absurd degree, and being “spoiled” is something some people avoid through seemingly extravagant means. Don’t talk to me right now, I’m on a plane over the alps with my phone off because I don’t want to know what happened with that one zombie dragon.

That is about the opposite of how I feel. Personally? I like learning things on my own time. I understand the appeal of being surprised by the latest zig or zag, but, more often than not, I like to learn new things and digest when I choose. A shared cultural event is nice and all, but I’d much rather learn how Special Hero dies and inevitably returns when I’m reading a wiki at 3 AM and more in the mood for learning about that particular universe. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see the show or read the book or whatever, too, but I’ve read far too many episode guides beforehand to really claim that the only way to enjoy a piece of media is through being immune to spoilers. Sure, I might know that Anti-Hero Protagonist dies ahead of time, but that can impact the viewing in its own way. I know how World War 2 ends, too, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a decent war movie.

And this is how I play Final Fantasy games. I understand that half the appeal of any given Final Fantasy release is “discovering” how the latest leveling system works, but… who has the time? Heck, who can play a Final Fantasy game, some of which involve literally 100 hours of commitment, and be okay with “maybe I’m missing something”? Not this neurotic nerd, I’ll tell you what. I had Nintendo Power for Final Fantasy “2” and “3”, purchased a strategy guide with all of the Playstation Final Fantasy games, and I kept it all going with Gamefaqs during the more lean financial years. Heck, I’d have probably bought a strategy guide for every Final Fantasy at release if it wasn’t for the Final Fantasy 9 guide being so abhorrently terrible. And I’ve never regretted it. Did I find out about Aeris’s death while reading through a strategy guide in a random restaurant? Yes. Did I discover the final boss of Final Fantasy 10 thanks to a FAQ? Of course. And did I know Kefka’s every move before I even booted up that precious little SNES cartridge? Certainly. But did it ever impact my love of these games? Did it make it so I can no longer stomach the mere thought of knowing Lightning’s final fate? Of course not. Chrono Trigger (a Final Fantasy in spirit) is one of my favorite games of all time, and I always knew how that one would end.

And I feel like I got more enjoyment out of the mere act of knowing than could ever be counterbalanced by a spoiler or two. I played Final Fantasy 5 with full knowledge of which jobs I wanted, and, rather than bumbling around as if trying to compose a meal while at the supermarket, I had a list, and I knew where I was going to get X-Fight. I never missed a summon materia in Final Fantasy 7, and I never missed a guardian force in Final Fantasy 8. I look back on my playthrough of Lightning Returns, and I’m content, because I know I unlocked every sidequest and accumulated every outfit. I know these things, and that makes me happy. I am happier knowing.

And it all started with the first Final Fantasy. I might not have been playing the game correctly, but it felt like I was doing something right, and that’s what’s important. I had 99 problems, but Lich ain’t one. I absorbed that Final Fantasy guide from cover to cover (complete with the random fanfic chapter introductions!), and it made the game better. I spoiled myself, and I’d do it again, because I’ve been doing it for years.

You might not have to be a wizard to hold arcane knowledge, but it sure does feel good.

FGC #322 Final Fantasy

System: Nintendo Entertainment System. I reserve the right to “review” any other releases, such as the Playstation Origins, the GBA Advanced, or the PSP whatever the hell was happening there. That was the worst “bonus” dungeon I have ever seen.

Number of players: One. Oh, which reminds me…

What’s in a name: Since I knew all the stats and whatnot going in, I was careful to name my Final Fantasy characters according to their specialties. Fighter was Bob, because I’m the leader, duh. Black Belt was Jon, for one of my friends that was a fan of karate, and White Mage was Mike, one of my more helpful friends. My best friend, Jim, was granted Black Mage, because I knew he would learn the most powerful offensive spell in the game. However, the real life Jimmy was upset, because he wanted to be the “cool” Black Belt. I… I didn’t have the heart to tell him that a ninja was available. Anyway, I did correct those problems for this playthrough.

Favorite Party: Oh, and I’m also incapable of choosing any party other than Fighter/Black Belt/White Mage/Black Mage. I mean, I know there are other options available, but that would be like forsaking a family member.

Favorite Monster: The Minotaur Zombie aka ZOMBULL aka Necrotaur is my favorite creature, because it scares the hell out of me. Imagine slaying a minotaur, and then, what, it just gets up again? It’s an undead minotaur? What do you do then? You run, dammit. You fun fast.

Credit where credit is due: Nasir Gebelli programmed the original Final Fantasy. Yes, the game barely works, but no one noticed that thirty years ago, and this is a shining example of how code doesn’t have to be elegant, it just has to (mostly) work. Nasir is my hero. He also programmed Secret of Mana, so, ya know, double hero.

Did you know? NES Final Fantasy doesn’t have a proper title screen. On boot, you’ve got the legend of the crystals, and then a load/new game screen that doesn’t even mention any “Final Fantasy”. Gotta wait ‘till the bridge to see that.

Would I play again: This is one of the most important games in my existence, and has defined how I approach not only videogames, but also life itself. And I’m not playing it ever again. Do you know how long it takes to make it through the Marsh Cave? Those stun locking packs of ghosts? Jesus.

What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Sneak King for the Xbox 360. Our next post is (not) sponsored by Burger King! Please look forward to it!

Look at most media… Hell… Look at practically the entire breadth of human creative output throughout history. Look at it, and consider how much of our entertainment is based on the simple notion of concretely defining fundamental concepts. “Family” isn’t the people you’re related to, it’s the friends you made along the way. “Hate”, “vengeance”, and “spite” will always rot you from the inside. Even the concept of a “soul” is obviously, in its own way, completely fictional. To be precise, I believe in “souls”, but I also know there’s absolutely no way to measure or quantify such a thing. Ultimately, we, as human beings, are continuously attempting to bottle and compute abstract concepts, and, somewhat ironically, we’ve managed to create more fiction about these imaginary concepts than should have ever been possible. Or maybe I should just write a story with the theme of futility to further innumerate this point.

But more than any other concept, the simple emotion of “love” has inspired more creative work than anything else in the feelings pantheon. Love can move mountains. Love can save the world. Love can change a person. Love is the strongest force in the universe. Assuming you were raised on a steady diet of cartoons, Disney, and Disney cartoons as a child, before you were even old enough to acknowledge what’s between your legs, you knew that love was the most important thing on the planet, and love is the answer to all problems. Even if you somehow missed that traditional modern fiction upbringing, this concept is the base of most religions, too. Love each other, love thy neighbor, and love your mother and father as The Father loves you. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about Jesus, Buddha, or chaos, even when you’ve got a God that has a tendency to turn people into pillars of salt, He is still doing it because He loves you. Without love, there is nothing. Everyone understands that, from toddlers to your bald-headed granny.

Except… we’re idiots. We are human beings, and, even after thousands of years of proper society, we are still meat machines piloted by ignorant monkeys. We talk endlessly about how we believe in the fantastic (whether that be supernatural forces or unquantifiable abstracts) but, end of the day, we’re morons that can’t get through the day without forgetting something important. Ever study advertising? People will “lose their faith” in any given product or service if it isn’t drilled into their collective brains on practically an hourly basis. Pepsi is ubiquitous, but history has proven that if it stops spending billions of dollars on reminding people that Pepsi exists, its sales plummet. Small businesses constantly hit an echelon of profit that they think will be maintained forever, cut back the advertising budget, and then shriek as sales shrivel. And, let’s be real here, name any forgotten religion, and I’ll show you a people that didn’t lose their faith, but maybe did forget how to appeal to the youth market.

In fact, let’s look at religion a little closer. Christianity is omnipresent in the Western world, but do you ever wonder how it got to that point? Was it because 100% of US presidents have claimed to be Christian (Oh, I’m sorry, are we claiming Jefferson was an atheist this week? You do know he wrote his own Bible fanfic, right?)? Was it because many towns in America built a local church before they ever built a place to buy actual food? Or was it because there was never a time in American history when you couldn’t buy a happy little cross to hang around your neck? In short, Christianity is Christianity in America not because the country is filled with believers that are just that dedicated to the faith, but because you can’t go two square miles from Atlantic to Pacific without running into a random Christian totem. “Christian Love” is abstract, the church’s real estate records are not.

I am a Christian (we’ve covered this). I believe in things I can’t see, like Jesus, miracles, and an afterlife that will hopefully involve more communing with God than damnation. I also have one (1) cross on display in my home, distinctly placed on my inherited piano (a former possession of my very religious grandmother). I consider it a sort of communion with my faith, and my faithful ancestors. I consider it a sweet, sacred sentiment… that is slightly counterbalanced by the presence of Optimus Primal, Megatron, and a Pokémon.

I am a nerd, and, when you get right down to it, nerdity is a modern religion. I believe in the strength of Voltron, the compassion of Optimus Prime, and the insatiable desire of Galactus. I have experienced stories that took hours and hours to absorb, and then spent the rest of my life contemplating the greater ramifications of Unnamed Main Character’s decisions. I will one day forget my grandchild’s birthday, but I will always remember where I was when I first beat Kid Chameleon. These are the abstract memories that, when I think about what and who I am, define my life. I’m not only defined by my raw geekery, but it is certainly one of a few lenses I use to see the world and my place in it.

But those lenses, those memories are imaginary. They are intangible, and, as save batteries are notoriously fragile, one day there will be no real proof that I played Super Metroid until my thumbs fell off (well, I guess my bionic thumbs could be used as proof, but, for all anyone knows, I could have just lost the old ones in the revolving door). I may love videogames, but how do I prove I love videogames?

Well, I guess filling an entire room of my house with cartridges and discs dating back thirty years, and then haphazardly tossing amiibos all over the place, is a start. Oh, and then I bought some shelves for these dorks:

As I mentioned last year, I bought all these damn figures when the line was being discontinued, and you could buy one and get four free. I still claim it all started with the Inside Out cast, but… why did it start there? Oh yeah, because I liked that movie an awful lot, and I wanted to support it in some way. And I feel about the same way about Brave and Frozen, so grab a few of a those. Oh! Wreck-It Ralph! That makes perfect sense in a videogame room. Tinker Bell is adorable, so is Stitch, and Aladdin has always reminded me of my childhood. The Avengers? Guardians of the Galaxy? Oh yeah, it would be cool to have a Gamora toy. And I guess I may as well pick up the Star Wars characters while we’re at it, as, come on, I have a nerd rep to maintain here. How could I pass up a wookie? … By about the time we get to some members of the Cars cast, frankly, I don’t even remember what I was thinking. Something about completion? Maybe it was just to round out a “get four free” tally.

But those are all excuses. The reason I bought these damn things is simple: it’s a covenant. I love my silly, hollow, nerdy interests, and I, even if only subconsciously, feel a need to prove that love. I enjoyed and continue to enjoy these properties, but a DVD on a shelf doesn’t cut it. I want a proper little totem, a tiny representation of my love, to always remind me of the good times. I want a framed portrait of my beloved family, and I want a Donald Duck statue right next to it.

We all have our fetishes. We all have pictures, crosses, and/or amiibos. We all have physical representations of our loves, because that makes the imaginary real, and we, as humans, need that. We all have our own Tangled statuettes, and that comes from a desire for the physical that dates back to the dawn of man. Our make-believe feelings become real because we make them such, and any ornament that does the job is a good one.

Number of players: Two, I think? You can only fit two little dudes on the scanning platform.

Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: This game feels like playing with toys. And that’s not a good thing. Everything feels very light and… inconsequential? Maybe it’s just a testament to how far games have come in recent decades, but the music and level design seem phoned-in, thus creating a weird disconnect between the fun of the gameplay (Nick Fury is fighting Captain Barbossa on the moon!) and the apathy the game direction seems to show for everything that is happening. In a weird way, this makes Disney Infinity the antithesis of Super Smash Bros, a game wherein everything feeds into hype. See also Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for something involving Marvel characters.

Why did this ever stop? Seriously, this whole thing seems like a slam dunk. Disney nerds by the figures even if they’re not going to play the game. Disney has an outlet to release “the official [insert movie title] game” within Infinity, and may then sell five random figures instead of just one game disc. Fresh franchises can be supported by setting up New Rando Character right next to beloved characters like Jasmine and Spider-Man. And there’s an excuse to release a “new” version every year or so that uses all the same assets. I’m really kind of amazed Disney got off this money train.

Favorite Disney Infinity Figure: As a surprise to even myself, I’m going to go with Princess Elsa of Frozen. She just looks so… dynamic. And her “character” is pretty useful, too!

Did you know? Apparently unrealized Disney Infinity figures include Moana, Spider-Gwen, the Rocketeer, Neytiri, and a figure that was described only as “all the hopes and dreams you ever had as a child.”

Would I play again: I’m going to be looking at these figures for the rest of my life… and I might play the game again, like, once. It does seem like the kind of game that might be fun to play with like a seven year old, though, so maybe I’ll break it out if I ever have a kid (and the squirt hasn’t destroyed my entire collection before being old enough).

I’m a child of Napster, or, more appropriately, I was a teenager of Napster (figure out my age from context clues!). This was pretty awesome, as, when I finally hit the age where I had my own musical preferences, there was suddenly every song ever recorded available, for free, and all a half hour download away. And this was the glory days of music piracy! You couldn’t just download an entire discography in seven seconds; no, you had to carefully pick and choose which songs you wanted, as, if you tried to download a complete new CD, it would hog all your bandwidth for the next year. I can still distinctly recall my first “mix CDs”… let’s see here, there was Butthole Surfers, a healthy amount of Blues Traveler, and a surprising excess of Chicago. Dire Straits snuck in there for some reason, Foo Fighters joined ‘em, and I think I was into some noticeable Garbage to boot. Cranberries, too? Of course. And, look, I’ll level with you, readers, I was really into ska. I eagerly await the day when all hope seems lost, and the Squirrel Nut Zippers return to us, refreshed and rejuvenated, with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in tow, and then The Second Great Age of Ska may begin. Oh, and there were three Final Fantasy songs in there: Final Fantasy 6’s Mog (Moogle Waltz), Final Fantasy 8’s Laguna (The Man with the Machine Gun), and Eyes on Me.

I cannot describe the significance of the presence of those songs. … Even if one is silly J-Pop.

The Final Fantasy franchise has always had good music. While Prelude and the main theme of Final Fantasy are obvious choices from the first adventure, I still remember every time I hit a location in FF1 that played Matoya’s Cave. It plays in other caves! It is a very poorly named song! And, while it doesn’t get nearly enough praise, the Final Fantasy airship theme is still one of the most triumphant ditties I’ve ever heard. It might just be because that new craft opens up a world of unlimited possibilities without random encounters and it means you never have to go into that stupid Ice Cave ever again, but I could listen to that silly airship loop forever and still be excited.

And, in a weird way, I feel like something ineffably “clicked” with me, even in those early Final Fantasy days. There was “Mario music”, and there was “Mega Man music” (or pretty much anything from the Capcom oeuvre that sounded like it came from Mega Man), and there was certainly “Castlevania music” (which, side note, totally rocked), but, somehow, “Final Fantasy music” not only was clearly its own animal, but it also contained what I would really call songs. This wasn’t just something you listened to while Mario was running around (“Oh, that song is called Running? Neat.”), these were actual songs you would listen to on a radio, or your super hi-tech Walkman. … And I’m not just saying that because I once used a cassette recorder to create an entire mix tape of Final Fantasy 3 (6) music in preparation for a week long camping trip that would, for some reason, be sans Super Nintendo. And you didn’t see me preserving Contra tunes for bouts of videogame withdrawal.

But to move past sixth grade and up to those halcyon teen years, precious Napster, giver of Final Fantasy music, was a gigantic unknown. Literally nothing before in human history had ever been like this “file sharing platform”. There was no standard for what was, essentially, the newest, greatest thievery network in human history. I mean, let’s not mince words here: with a good enough internet connection, you could effectively steal every song that had ever been recorded. It was all out there and available, from Abba to Zero 7, and, more importantly, no one knew how long it would be before this tower of sin inevitably toppled. There was this simultaneous feeling of “this will be awesome forever” and “oh my God this is a crime, get what you can while you can.” Hell, the entire idea of “a MP3” was basically synonymous with depravity, and we could nary imagine that, in a few short years, Apple of all companies would be peddling them like candy. In the meanwhile, it wasn’t just about free music, it was about the music being available at all. Want to know how many Final Fantasy songs I would have purchased before 1998 if I could have even done such a thing? The answer is “all of them, all of them forever”. Do you think I really wanted to buy that Jethro Tull album? Well, yes, I did, but if I could have purchased a Final Fantasy 6 album in its place, I absolutely would have. Aqualung is nothing compared to Strago’s Aqua Rake. But Napster and its “criminal web” was the only available avenue.

And, God help me, I feel like nearly twenty years later, nothing has changed. I’m still about ten minutes away from holding a tape recorder to the TV.

Yes, you can purchase the entire Final Fantasy library on iTunes, and, yes, we now live in a glorious future where every third JRPG you buy comes with a partial soundtrack (this is why I have so many Atlus sponsored coasters). But, well, I feel like there’s a reason I’m increasingly separated from the “real” radio. As a child of Napster, I am an MP3 hog. I have gone all in on CD-ripping and MP3 purchasing over the years, and I have… let’s see here… 6,518 MP3s on my playlist. And, to be perfectly clear, this is a carefully manicured list that has been accumulated over approximately twenty years, and is not simply, “Here’s a new CD, let’s rip every song and call it a day,” as if I were some kind of barbarian. No, there are only songs I want to listen to on this playlist, and all 300 or so hours of it is good stuff. And I know, that, of those 6,500 songs, if I choose to go back to listening to the “real” radio, I will probably hear… about twenty of those songs.

I have eclectic tastes.

It may not have been true back on the NES, but by the time we hit Dancing Madly, Final Fantasy was pumping out what was obviously “real music”. But will any of that music -literally thirty years’ worth of tunes performed by real, live orchestras- ever hit the FM stations? Of course not. And, mind you, I’m not claiming there needs to be Aloha De Chocobo on heavy rotation with the greatest hits of yesterday and today, but it would be kind of nice if, out of the hundreds of songs composed for the Final Fantasy franchise over the years, maybe we could get one that plays more often than an Avril Lavigne song from fifteen years ago. Come to think of it, The Red Hot Chili Peppers have been releasing the same song for the last three decades, maybe there’s room for Etro’s Champion somewhere in there.

I’m not naïve, I know Pitbull has more popularity and advertising clout than Lightning ever will, but when I sit down to play Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Curtain Call with its 321 songs (admittedly, some are DLC), I realize that literally hundreds of brilliant, memorable songs have been ghettoized to the slums of “it’s just videogame music”. And FFTCC is amazing, because it allows you to participate in these songs (Okay, you technically always could participate, but it turns out that hitting the Fight command to the beat doesn’t actually make Cloud do extra damage), and truly realize that some of these songs have become part of your DNA. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the crazy one that can more easily recall the melody from Melodies of Life than anything by The Who, or maybe I’m the new normal. Despite the fact that a healthy portion of the population has never known a world without videogames, somehow One-Winged Angel still isn’t real music.

And it’s doubly strange, because, FFTCC, released three years ago, has no imitators. There was a Dragon Quest-based sequel that never saw our shores, and… that’s it. There are no Mega Man, Castlevania, or even Nintendo music library based rhythm games out there. And that means something. Final Fantasy is, whether through skill or marketing or some combination of both, the king of videogame music, and its own industry (and its fans) recognize that.

But, while Final Fantasy may be king, it’s king of the smallest, smelliest kingdom. It will never be invited to the big kids’ table, and will always be relegated to 3DS games or file sharing sites. Final Fantasy music may have come a long way in the last two decades, but it will still never reach the echelon of popularity dominated by Natalie Imbruglia.

If there’s one thing that my ancient mix CDs and Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Curtain Call can agree on, it’s that Final Fantasy deserves better.

Though, if you’ve read this far, I’m obviously preaching to the choir. Sorry. Okay, choir, let’s get another round of Liberi Fatali going. From the top!

FGC #291 Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Curtain Call

System: Nintendo 3DS. Screen be damned, I would be happy to see a “complete” version pop up on the Switch.

Number of players: Two! I actually played head-to-head FFTCC once… and lost. Never tried again. I am a prideful man.

Favorite Song: And after an entire article extolling the joys of Final Fantasy music, I’m going to go ahead and name Chrono Trigger (The Theme from Chrono Trigger) as my favorite tune. What? Be glad I didn’t choose something from Nier!

Favorite Character: Lil’ Chaos is so adorable. That said, as much as I love this game, I kind of hate the… whatever this art style is called for the characters. Then again, I might just be biased because I had a bad experience with Flash figures back in the day.

Stylus or Buttons: While I understand you get more precision with the buttons, I’m a stylus guy. It just feels so much more… tactile to swipe along to the beat.

Did you know: Buying “additional characters” as DLC in a game where characters barely matter is robbery, and you know it, SE.

Would I play again: This is one game I really regret owning in cart, and not downloaded-forever form. That said, I do pop it back in the 3DS on occasion, and I always replay the game “for one more song” over and over again. So that’s a definite yes.

What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Brutal Paws of Fury for the Super Nintendo. That isn’t a Bubsy game is it? No? Okay, so please look forward to it.